Question A mythology question

I was thinking about a scene I am planning for a story, and something struck me as a bit odd. I don't want to give my thoughts away, so I have a request.

Without Googling, Yahooing, Binging, or going to any sort of reference List the Pantheons that you can name 3 or more Gods of, or all the Gods if there are less than three.

For example:
Greek/Roman (I can never keep them straight as to which belongs to which)
Norse
Slavic
Egyptian


There are others that I can think of one or two Gods of, and would likely recognize more names from but I just can't think of them.

If you answer don't put too much thought into it.

Hinduism has a pantheon too.
And then you have all the shamanic religions that have all the animal gods.
Shintoism has all its spirits.
The Celtic Gods can be looked up as well.
Myan gods are know (I believe), either them or the Aztec or Incan gods.
The Babalonian gods are recorded.

Most other ancient religions with enough writing found and translated would have their pantheon known, Monotheism is relatively unusual in history, and most of the monotheist religions trace back to Judaism.

Getting back to "name three or more gods", because of my background (Australian of Irish heritage living in Singapore) I could recognise probably three or more Celtic, Hindu or Shinto 'gods', and would know three or so from the Incan / Aztec / Myans, but would be hard pressed to know which gods belong to which pantheon there.

Other than the ones you listed, the only pantheon that I can think of and name three from would be the Hindu pantheon. Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma are the ones that immediately come to mind, though there are MANY more.

Let's see...

Greek/Roman - I think I can name the entire main pantheon, plus others in both versions
Norse - Not the entire pantheon, but a great many
Egyptian - I can identify at least three, and I can get most of the pantheon by singing "Playing with the Big Boys Now"

Mythologies that I have familiarity with, but don't hit the three name mark:
Irish/Celtic (Is there a difference? I don't know enough to say)
Hindu
Mayan
Native American
Zoroastrian (They may only have two gods total)
Babylonian
Slavic
Voodoo (or however it's supposed to be spelled)
Christianity/Judaism/Islam (They don't have pantheons, though, so they shouldn't count)

Phoenix Spiritus wrote: Hinduism has a pantheon too.
And then you have all the shamanic religions that have all the animal gods.
Shintoism has all its spirits.
The Celtic Gods can be looked up as well.
Myan gods are know (I believe), either them or the Aztec or Incan gods.
The Babalonian gods are recorded.

Most other ancient religions with enough writing found and translated would have their pantheon known, Monotheism is relatively unusual in history, and most of the monotheist religions trace back to Judaism.

Getting back to "name three or more gods", because of my background (Australian of Irish heritage living in Singapore) I could recognise probably three or more Celtic, Hindu or Shinto 'gods', and would know three or so from the Incan / Aztec / Myans, but would be hard pressed to know which gods belong to which pantheon there.

It wasn't recognize, as I would recognize those from the Aztec or Mayan all though I am not sure I could place them correctly, Celtic, and others. It is those that you can actually recall.

Arcanist Lupus wrote: Let's see...

Mythologies that I have familiarity with, but don't hit the three name mark:

Native American

This one is more than one pantheon. Each group had a pantheon - e.g. most of the Plains tribes are similar but not identical. The southwest (Hopi, Navajo) are kind of similar. And so on.

Norse
Aztec,
Incan
Mayan
Several dozen North American tribes,
Celtic,
Buddhism
Hindu
One or two Australian tribes
Shintoism,
Chinese mythology,
Egyptian
Voodoo
Slavic (really only know the names)
Western African
Babylonian

I read a lot of fantasy, modern fantasy RPG that deals with gods, and I read a lot of myths when I was a teen and a kid. To go into more than the names and minor details for most of this I'd need to reread them or do a fair bit of thinking.

For me, I would be the weakest member I'm sure.

Greek/Roman of course. Required for English back in the day.
Norse: A few as they came from comics, but lets not have that stop me.
Egyptian are the last of the 3 you asked for.

I may have read or viewed many others but not enough to where they clicked on me. For sure not having 3.

So now the dunce of the group will find a corner stool and have a seat as the smarty pants tell their tales.

Okay, Norse, Greco-Roman, Egyptian, and Japanese Shinto are easy for me. Babylonian, Hindu and Celtic I can do with a little thought. and I don't know if you'd count the Voudoun Loa as a patheon, but I could do them too.

The reason you only really know the names of the Slavic Pantheon, is because of the one person I would really, really like to go back in time and kill. Tsar Vladimir of Russia. When he converted to Christianity, for political reasons, he very nearly destroyed all records of the Slavic Religion and forced everyone to become Christian.

Valentine wrote:

Phoenix Spiritus wrote: Hinduism has a pantheon too.
And then you have all the shamanic religions that have all the animal gods.
Shintoism has all its spirits.
The Celtic Gods can be looked up as well.
Myan gods are know (I believe), either them or the Aztec or Incan gods.
The Babalonian gods are recorded.

Most other ancient religions with enough writing found and translated would have their pantheon known, Monotheism is relatively unusual in history, and most of the monotheist religions trace back to Judaism.

Getting back to "name three or more gods", because of my background (Australian of Irish heritage living in Singapore) I could recognise probably three or more Celtic, Hindu or Shinto 'gods', and would know three or so from the Incan / Aztec / Myans, but would be hard pressed to know which gods belong to which pantheon there.

It wasn't recognize, as I would recognize those from the Aztec or Mayan all though I am not sure I could place them correctly, Celtic, and others. It is those that you can actually recall.

Ah, sorry.

Celtic, Shinto, Hindu and the 'Chinese Imortals' which seem to get shared around amongst the Chinese religions, along with the obligatory Roman/Greek, Egyptian and Norse.

Phoenix Spiritus wrote:
Celtic, Shinto, Hindu and the 'Chinese Imortals' which seem to get shared around amongst the Chinese religions, along with the obligatory Roman/Greek, Egyptian and Norse.

From living in China, the myths, philosophies and religions are very intermingled, so you can't just say which is which without a lot of crossover.

New religions co-opting older religion's myths as a means of pacifying their faithful. Christianity did it a lot as well as if grew throughout Europe, it's just that Christianity spread further and absorbed and amalgamated more Myths, it's a lot harder to pick out the originals from what is left.

Thinking about this, not sure if it's what you mean, but Christianity also has its Myths, the Archangel Michael casting down Lucifer from heaven, Archangel Gabriel, God's messenger. Archangel Raphael, etc.

elrodw wrote:

Arcanist Lupus wrote: Let's see...

Mythologies that I have familiarity with, but don't hit the three name mark:

Native American

This one is more than one pantheon. Each group had a pantheon - e.g. most of the Plains tribes are similar but not identical. The southwest (Hopi, Navajo) are kind of similar. And so on.

I know that. But I don't have enough familiarity to separate them, so I didn't.

I know at least 3 gods from over a dozen mythologies, right offhand. some of those are dead of course.

But then again, for a writing project of my own, I've been looking up various mythologies, and I was always an aficionado.

A bunch, I guess:

Judaic - Yahveh, Gabriel, Satan
Christian - Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Gabriel, Satan
Greek - Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, Hades
Roman - Jupiter, Mars, Minerva
Egyptian - Isis, Osiris, Horus, Set
Celtic/Gaul - Toutatis, Belenos, Belisama, Lug
Hindu - Shiva, Kali, Ganesha
Afro-Brazilian - Oxossi, Ogun, Oxalá
Nordic - Odin, Baldr, Thor, Loki
Tupi - Tupan, Yara, Jaci

Without Google, can I grab my AD&D Deities and Demigods? Never could spell Quetzalcoatl (but apparently it is in the Firefox English spelling dictionary). I can recall the pictures of the south american patheouns but I can't remember the names and which ones go with which tribes.

For me, there are:

Norse
Greek
Roman
Egyptian
Christian
Hindu (barely)
Shinto

Any Native American pantheons that include Coyote/Raven, Thunderbird, and the Great Spirit.

Whatever you want to call the collection of figures like Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy.

Valentine wrote: Greek/Roman (I can never keep them straight as to which belongs to which)

The trick (at least for the main ones) is to remember that the Roman versions are the ones with planets named after them, and you can remember that by remembering that scientific names tend to come from Latin, which comes from Rome.

Kettlekorn wrote: Whatever you want to call the collection of figures like Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy.

Silly Kettlekorn, those are the GUARDIANS!!!

Just need to add Jack Frost and Sandman to the mix...

Another pantheon: the Great Maker, G'Quan and Valen.

elrodw wrote:

Arcanist Lupus wrote: Let's see...

Mythologies that I have familiarity with, but don't hit the three name mark:

Native American

This one is more than one pantheon. Each group had a pantheon - e.g. most of the Plains tribes are similar but not identical. The southwest (Hopi, Navajo) are kind of similar. And so on.

You can name the common spirits from each Nation, Eagle ( Thunderbird ), Raven, Coyote, Bear, White Calf Buffalo woman, Wolf as an overall pantheon.

The distinct differences between them have a lot to do with their local environment, the coastal people have a fair number of water based spirits, like the Orca, Salmon, Otter, while the plains people would have the squirrel, mouse, badger. An Orca spirit interacting with someone on the plains just wouldn't fit well.